


Do Not Drink With Your Enemy

by WhatYouKnow_YouKnow



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, I wrote this like two years ago shut up, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, One Night Stands, This doesn't really make a lot of sense, like at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 22:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19305532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatYouKnow_YouKnow/pseuds/WhatYouKnow_YouKnow
Summary: In which Kell and Holland get a little too drunk and have a One-Night-Stand: The Aftermath.





	Do Not Drink With Your Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers:  
> 1\. I wrote this a long time ago, so it's shitty. Also, English is not my native language.  
> 2\. I know Antaris heal quickly but... it's just a fanfiction have mercy  
> Thought some of y'all might enjoy... Holland/Kell tag is so empty, but thank you to all the kind fourteen souls who already wrote sumn
> 
> yeet

Holland woke up with a throbbing headache and in a bed that wasn’t his. 

A short moment of terror seized control over him and he pushed himself up in a sitting position quickly, bringing his guard up despite the pain ringing in his skull and bracing himself for an attack which never came. His shoulders relaxed slightly upon realizing that and instead he concentrated on the other facts which lay at hand although his mind was not entirely awake yet.

Firstly, he did not remember anything on the circumstances of how he got here – only the vague recognition of the room he was in served as an orientation of what “here” exactly meant. The reddish tint on the walls and the warmth in the air indicated that he was still in the other London. 

Secondly, Holland realized that his clothes were missing. Missing as in not on his body right now, he could see some of his clothes, for example his shirt was draped across a sofa not very far away from him and his pants lay on the floor a few feet away, on the other hand, his underwear was apparently harder to find straightaway.  
And thirdly, his clothes were not the only ones distributed across the room. There were two jackets, as well as, two shirts and two pants. By then, Holland already had a pretty good picture of what had happened, so it should not have surprised him to see someone lying next to him.

It did surprise him however, because that person next to him was Kell. 

Kell, who was now, to Holland’s utter mortification, waking up and taking sight of him immediately. His eyes widened in shock and he scrambled away, taking some of the bed cover with him – and away from Holland – in an attempt to shield his body. But Holland rapidly grabbed on to his part, keeping the lower half of his body appropriately covered because in no way was he going to risk exposure like that. 

“Careful,” he hissed at him, but Kell was still apparently in shock.

“Holland!” he merely yelped and then, “What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering the same thing.”

“Why am I not wearing any clothes?”

“Good question, but I think you can answer that one for yourself.”

Kell gaped at him and Holland could see his mind working, putting two and two together, up to the point when he suddenly blushed and averted his eyes. “Did we…?” 

Holland sighed. “Seems like it.”

“Shit,” he cursed and let himself flop back into the bed. “Do you remember anything?”

Holland, in fact, did not. And this was unsettling enough as it is. He never let his guard down that much. “No.”

“Me neither,” Kell said, running a hand through his hair uncomfortably. At least Holland was not the only one.

“Probably for the better.” He grimaced and shuffled to the margin of the bed, keeping the bed cover always firmly above his lap, and looked for his underwear from where he was sitting. The piece of clothing lay (luckily) just next to the bed, so he could reach for it without having to get up. And as he tried to wriggle into them under the safe shield of view, Kell was still lying in the same spot, not particularly looking as if he was preparing to get up. Instead he was staring straight ahead as if lost in thought, on the other hand, it was his room, so it made sense to wait until Holland had left. 

There were rarely any scenarios in which Holland ever felt even slightly awkward or uncomfortable, but this was definitely one of them. The idea that he and Kell had been this close to one another for whatever reason, was extremely unsettling to him and therefore he was glad neither he nor Kell could remember it. 

“So, what now?” Kell asked, watching Holland as he got out of the bed and tapped over to his other clothes, which lay strewn across the room. 

“Nothing,” Holland responded, picking up his pants and, after short consideration, also Kell’s, tossing them over to him. 

“Nothing?” He heard Kell say – his back was turned on him as he continued to pick the articles of clothing up. Even though he registered that Kell’s voice sounded sceptic, he ignored him and instead put on his pants, busying himself with closing the belt. This seemingly annoyed Kell, because he scoffed and continued talking. “We are just going to let this stay here like that? In the open. Pretend that nothing happened.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a stupid idea.”

Holland would be so relieved when he finally got to leave this room. Kell was being insufferable. How in his right mind did Holland even feel attracted to him last night? How drunk had he been?

He turned to look at him and saw that Kell had meanwhile gotten out of bed, trousers on, still shirtless. The sight strangely made him avert his gaze before he responded. “If you have something better in mind then say so. Otherwise, yes, we pretend it didn’t happen. That is the best solution.”

Kell scoffed again and Holland shook his head in annoyance, buttoning up his shirt. 

“I would wear something high collared if I were you,” Kell said at once. 

Holland stopped and raised his eyebrows at him, awaiting further explanation. But Kell merely nodded towards a mirror on the inside of the open door of his wardrobe, giving no other comment but looking slightly uncomfortable. A bad premonition built in the back of Holland’s mind and with quick, light steps, he was in front of the mirror, scanning over his reflection from his abdomen upwards and then, with great disturbance, saw what Kell had meant. Small purple bruises adorned his throat and upper body. One under his jaw, two others trailing down, and another one (whose presence was most unsettling) on his chest. Hickies. From Kell. 

If he didn’t already have a headache, now would have been the time to get one.

He cursed, eyes still transfixed on his reflection, then tore his gaze away to glare at the other Antari, who raised his shoulder apologetically. 

“Thanks a lot,” Holland said dryly, then, “Give me something to cover it up.”

“Usually, people say “please”, but I’ll let that pass for once.” Kell looked amused as he said that and it made Holland hate him even more. Of course, he would find that funny. He wasn’t the one who had to live with a reminder like that, Holland did. Why did he, even at that time, allow something like that to happen? How incredibly foolish it had been of him. 

He watched Kell walk over to the wardrobe and start flipping through the shirts which hung there, standing on his tiptoes when looking at the ones in the highest shelf. He still wore no shirt himself, so his bare back was exposed to Holland’s view. It was meant to be a quick glance, but his fleeting gaze stuttered to a halt when he saw fine, red tinted lines drag from his shoulder blades down, suspiciously looking like done by fingernails. With humiliation, he now knew exactly what part he had played in all this, hoping that these marks would go away soon enough before Kell noticed. 

“Take this,” Kell interrupted his thoughts, handing him a thin, black scarf. “It’ll work well enough. And we’ll just say you have a cold or something.” 

Holland looked at it sceptically, but for lack of better options he took it from him without another word and put it on, making sure that his marks were completely hidden from sight. When the coverage was well enough for him, he stepped away from the mirror and went to pick up his jacket from where it lay tossed on a chair, then, collected his shoes from the floor and slipped them on. 

Throwing a hesitant look over to Kell, who was busy shrugging on his shirt and didn’t notice the attention, he slowly moved to the doors which led out of the room. Unsure of what else to say, he prepared to leave. 

“Holland,” Kell said and he turned, hand still on the doorknob. “This didn’t mean anything, right?” 

“Of course not,” he responded and left. 

Later that day, memories, however hazy and confusing they were, would eventually come back to him like lost pieces of a puzzle. 

He would remember laughing, although not about what. 

He would remember Kell’s hand on his thigh under the table, but not how it came to it. 

He would remember whispering something in his ear, leaving the party early and being shoved against a wall and kissed as soon as the doors closed behind them. 

He would remember clothes being torn off, Kell’s fingers trailing down his spine, and skin, so much skin.

And he would remember breathlessly saying this: “I like us much better this way.” And Kell kissing him and saying: “Me too.” 

Lying awake at night, all these moments would buzz around in his mind until he could think about nothing else than how it had felt to have Kell’s body against him and his lips on top of his own. He thought about it long enough until this unwanted longing to feel it again struck him in his chest and made him breathless.

Desperately, he hoped that he was the only one who remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> Holland is a bottom, go spread the word


End file.
